


Taken

by AeonDelirium



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Dreams vs. Reality, M/M, Manipulation, general weirdness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-31
Updated: 2014-10-31
Packaged: 2018-02-23 07:43:38
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,279
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2539874
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AeonDelirium/pseuds/AeonDelirium
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Perhaps there was some truth to Old Nan's stories, and perhaps history repeats itself, now that Winter is coming.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Taken

**Author's Note:**

  * For [crookedneighbour](https://archiveofourown.org/users/crookedneighbour/gifts).



> Prompt: Ghost stories and legends of days past (esp boltons, night king or other creepy stuff)
> 
> Ohhh myyyy. Sorry if it's a little more on the weird, confusing wtf-is-this-even side than the creepy. Happy Halloween in any case!

Robb did not know what drove him. A sharp gust of wind bit into him as he slipped through the rows of tents, the King in the North no more than a thief in the night. _Two more steps_ , he told himself as he set one foot in front of the other, avoiding roots and patches of ice without seeing them or knowing they were there, _two more steps and I'll turn back. I'll turn back at the next row. I'll turn back if someone sees me. I will._ But two steps turned into a dozen and the tents swam past him in a blur, and he found himself nodding, mortified, to a guard who sketched a bow in passing. One step and another, and his legs kept moving of their own accord. There were nights when he could not even recall leaving his bed or his tent, and mornings when he was not certain he truly had.  
  
Silence wrapped around him like a heavy cloak when he ducked beneath a tent flap, out of the wind and out of sight at last. A soft sigh of relief escaped his mouth and he promptly made a face, disgusted with himself.  
Lord Bolton's tent was warm, as always, almost stifling, big iron braziers painting nightmarish creatures onto every softly moving wall. Nothing seemed quite steady in the flickering orange light, reality a fragile thing that might dissolve in a plume of smoke at any moment. And yet he could not help the sense of calm that took a hold of him, tugging on his limbs, telling him to breathe, to simply let it happen, to relax. It was stepping into Seventh Hell just to find it felt like coming home.  
Robb's eyes scanned the room while the small hairs on the back of his neck still stood on edge, and once more he wondered what it was that brought him back night after night, walking into the very same trap like a lamb to the slaughter. Enough blood had been spilled already, so much of it that the stench clung to his clothes and hair and followed them from camp to camp wherever they moved. But not tonight. His jaw tightened and he stood a little straighter, a man grown. _Tonight I'll end it. I will._  
  
“Your Grace.” There was a familiar whisper of red silk over smooth skin, and Robb did not need to look to know precisely the way the light would catch in strands of dark hair and folds of fabric as Lord Bolton wrapped the robe around his shoulders, rose from his chair and turned to face him.  
“My lord,” he found himself replying, the words heavy on his tongue, heavy with meaning that extended far beyond the common courtesy they implied. Already he felt his resolve weaken, his strength seeping from him like the cold, and he let himself be lulled into a familiar sense of safety, a heavy burden slipping from his shoulders. It was too easy to simply submit.  
Bolton did not bow. He did not move to greet him. He did not need to. Robb stepped closer almost timidly, the Young Wolf barely more than a pup, but desperate to fill a space he knew, he _knew_ was his by right. _I'm king_ , he told himself, _he'll kneel to me if I tell him to. I'll make him. I will._  
The ground scraped his knees, but it was a good pain. Robb bit his lip briefly as his limbs locked into place, exactly where they belonged, like they had never been meant to walk or stand or fight, like they had always been meant for this.  
Roose Bolton rarely smiled, but Robb liked to think he was pleased to see him kneel. He liked to think it was all he thought about during the long days riding and the evenings spent brooding over battle plans. He wallowed in the idea for a moment before he pushed it away with a sharp intake of breath, curling his fingers into useless fists. _I'll end it. I will._  
  
Reality slipped, too easily. Bolton's fingers were on his face before he knew it, every bit as cold as his eyes. A strange sound rose from Robb's throat, the pathetic whine of dog, and he flushed with embarrassed anger, baring his teeth in something that was no smile. If any of Old Nan's stories about wargs and wights and the Starks' famed wolf blood were true, why couldn't he simply rise to his feet and bury his fangs in Bolton's throat and _end it_ as he had intended? The answer was painfully plain. _The lone wolf dies, but the pack survives._ There was a dull pang of regret when he remembered he no longer had a pack. _Perhaps they'll come for me regardless_ , he thought, as long fingers caressed his cheek, and he let them.  
He could not have said how much time had passed this way, but no one came, as no one had come on any night before, and no one had ever seen the change in Lord Roose's face. It was a shadow seen from the corners of his eyes, even though Robb was looking straight at it as their gaze remained locked, a fragment of a dream that slipped away like a waft of steam. There was no name for it, nor a word to describe it, not quite. It was something ancient, awful, perhaps as old as the North itself. Bolton's hand traced his pulse, and Robb could have sworn he was painting his skin with hoarfrost, chilling him to the very core.  
 _He loved her, though her skin was cold as ice._ Old Nan had always suspected him to have been a Stark, not an Umber or a Glover. Not that the tale had meant anything to him, back in those days.  
  
Robb did not know what drove him or why, but when he leaned his face into the touch, just like a favoured pet might, he was overcome by a feeling of _rightness_ so definite and powerful it made his skin crawl and prickle, like limbs coming back to life after the numbness left by a cold night ebbs away. Lord Bolton's touch was cold enough to almost burn, yet he found himself wanting more of it, his breath a succession of moist gasps as the desire took hold of him, seizing his body whole.  
Bolton's tall shape loomed over him, casting its shadow upon him like a flood of dark water that found him more than willing to drown, so cold it hurt, but still he felt himself drawn ever closer to this … dared he even think of him as a man? His eyes shone like stars in a cruel pale sky, without passion and without mercy, and yet his own heart overflowed with warmth. It was as though winter itself had opened its arms for him, and all he wanted was to submit to the embrace. He closed his eyes for a moment, head spinning with intoxication.  
  
This was more than just a game men played in times of war, though sometimes it was easier to pretend. Folds of crimson silk parted before him, and he pressed his mouth onto what lay beneath, only vaguely aware of the hands guiding him, tightening in his hair. This was something else, something larger than him, larger than both of them perhaps, a game that had begun before either of them had even been born. Perhaps they were only playing pieces, and the true war raging in their blood.  
  
A very weak, very quiet part of him recoiled in horror from the picture they must make; the King in the North on his knees before his bannerman like some camp follower, face buried between his legs. But those were worldly worries, petty little issues of a king of men. Robb discarded them, pushing them to the back of his mind as his hands dug into the silken robe, tearing at it. Lord Bolton granted him these small liberties sometimes, permitting them without comment, and Robb cursed and hated himself for how grand they made them feel, how grateful. How much like a dog given a fine cut of meat. It was all he could do not to use his teeth. Finally, the fabric fell and pooled on the floor like a puddle of blood, out of sight and out of thought. Robb wrapped his arms around Lord Bolton's legs, his lips parted for a wordless prayer. Whether he prayed for help or happiness, he could not have said.  
  
If anyone were to find them like this … there was more at stake than just another battle and another storm of swords. Robb thought of all the old Starks in their crypts, their faces of stone crumbled to dust because he could not control himself, Winterfell gone to rubble and ruin because of the shame he had brought upon it, his own mother, _dead_ , slain by the disaster he had unleashed, and it did not matter. The images swirled through his mind like a scatter of leaves, gone with a breeze and as easily forgotten. He opened his mouth for Lord Bolton, allowing him to draw him closer, joining their flesh together hot to cold, and all was right with the world.  
  
Robb knew he was being marked, and not just with scratches and bruises that looked like frostbite and burned like venom beneath his skin, concealed by high collars and long sleeves, another secret shared between the two of them.  
He was being changed. He was being _taken_ , bit by bit. It was hard to tell where his crazed imagination ended and the truth began, but as the nights grew darker and the men shivered and moaned beneath their leathers and furs, the cold seemed to lose its bite to him as day by day went by. It was said men often shed their clothes just before they froze to death, exposing themselves to the elements as a final act of defiance. But Robb knew better. Robb knew there was nothing defiant about it. Robb knew how tempting the cold could be, how sometimes an icy gust of wind was as good as the harsh breath of a lover down his back, he knew the welcome ache of tired limbs after a clear night out. Robb knew he would lose the fight, sooner or later, and he could not help the spark of perverted excitement that came with knowing.  
 _He loved her, though her skin was cold as ice._ There were days when he still remembered how the story ended, but they were becoming few and far between.  
  
He wondered about the leeches, sometimes. He knew they were vital in some way, that they did things, _prevented_ things he was not yet ready to see. Lord Bolton would not allow him in his tent on nights he had gone without, and those were the nights that left him aching, wondering, longing, praying against reason for a chance to prove himself. The idea was beginning to consume him. Long forgotten were his plans to end it all, to have the man accused of treason or send him off to King's Landing on some fool's errand. He was trapped in a song written in his own blood, following the steps laid out before him. _When Winter comes this time_ , Lord Bolton had told him one night before he drew him into his cold bed, _their_ bed, _it will come for good._  
  
Then, one day, the raven came. Robb saw his mother's face as through a veil, too far removed to truly feel for her. In fact she looked rather ugly when she cried. But it were not her tears that moved him, nor her voice that reached him. Something within him crumbled when he read the words for himself, taking the parchment from her shaking hands. The truth was like a burst of flame inside his frozen heart. Winterfell, gone to rubble and ruin.  
  
Robb had never truly been a man of faith and piety, but that night he left camp in search of a weirwood, stumbling through the dark until his feet would no longer carry him, and he prayed until his knees ached and his voice left him, giving to the gods what he would have given to the cold ones otherwise. He prayed until he had nothing left to offer. He prayed until he heard the footsteps behind him.  
He did not need to look back over his shoulder to know precisely the way the moonlight would catch in dark strands of hair and those godless eyes. Lord Bolton did not reach out to touch him, knowing he would have flinched from him like he had the very first time. There was some solace in the tears that fell from his eyes now, hot and heavy enough to melt holes in the snow, and the roar of blood in his ears, and the sharp pain in his fingers, the way he was so very much alive when his brothers were gone.  
“This ends, now,” he ground out, his expression thin-lipped and strained as he fought against the lure of the night and the cold and the arms just waiting to draw him back into their embrace and make him forget.  
Robb did not look up to see his face, but when he heard the smile in Lord Bolton's voice, he could have sworn he felt the heart freeze in his chest once more.  
“Your Grace,” the man said softly, a whisper that mingled with the rising wind. “It has already begun.”  
 


End file.
